(Fwd) Fwd: IAB comments on Green Paper

For information, in case you haven't seen it already.

Niall O'Reilly

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Tue, 24 Feb 1998 09:43:44 +0000
From:          John Martin <martin at terena.nl> (by way of Michael Walsh)
Subject:       Fwd: IAB comments on Green Paper
To:            niall.oreilly at ucd.ie

For info,

Michael.

>Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 11:41:39 +0000
>From: Brian E Carpenter <brian at hursley.ibm.com>
>Organization: IBM Internet Division
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>To: ietf at ns.ietf.org
>Subject: Fwd: IAB comments on Green Paper
>
>Note to the IETF from the IAB:
>
>The IAB has carefully studied the US Government Green Paper
>at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/dnsdrft.htm
>and has considered the opinions expressed on the
>IETF and other mailing lists. We have sent the attached note
>to Ira Magaziner in response to the Green Paper.
>
>The IAB will not comment on who should or should not
>be entitled to operate a gTLD registry. There is clearly no
>consensus on this in the IETF. It is also a question
>affecting business practices, which is not a legitimate subject
>of debate for a standards organization under anti-trust law.
>The IAB was happy to nominate technical representatives to
>the IAHC, and to the gTLD-MOU POC, and within reason would do
>the same for any IANA-approved gTLD registry requesting technical
>advice.
>
>> Subject: IAB comments on Green Paper
>> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 11:33:41 +0000
>> From: Brian E Carpenter <brian at hursley.ibm.com>
>> To: Ira Magaziner <Ira_C._Magaziner at oa.eop.gov>
>> CC: iab at iab.org
>>
>>
>> To: Ira C Magaziner
>> From: Internet Architecture Board
>>
>> Ira,
>>
>> 1. The IAB generally welcomes the proposal to replace US
>> Government funding of the central technical administration
>> of the Internet by a new non-governmental body with widely
>> based, international participation. The IAB, as a technical
>> group, will not take a position on details of the public policy
>> aspects of the proposal.
>>
>> 2. There appears to be considerable confusion in the community
>> about the definition of 'registry' as presented in this paper.
>> It is our understanding that this is meant to identify a shared
>> database for registrations in a TLD. There are no technical
>> limitations to management of such a database by multiple parties,
>> even if the database is physically unique for technical reasons.
>> The discussion concerning 'lock-in' reinforces the viewpoint that
>> a single entity would control a database and therefore a gTLD. We
>> do not believe this is required by database technology. As
>> this issue is one of the most contentious, clarification of the
>> text is required.
>>
>> Assuming we have correctly interpreted the word 'registry',
>> the IAB wishes to point out that there is no technical reason
>> for the proposed limit of one gTLD per such registry.
>>
>> On the other hand, a very large increase in the total number of gTLDs
>> (say to thousands) would lead us into technically unknown territory.
>>
>> We note that the green paper attempts to define specifics and
>> details concerning the number of gTLDs, the number of registries,
>> and the number of gTLDs per registry.  In keeping with the
>> principles that have allowed the Internet to flourish, that is,
>> bottom-up consensus-building and self-determination, we
>> encourage the US government to avoid specific detail and, instead,
>> allow self governance the opportunity to determine the details.
>> We also note that considerable progress has been made over the
>> last 12 months in developing gTLD criteria and dispute resolution
>> procedures, and this progress is not adequately recognized in
>> the green paper.
>>
>> 3. The IAB is a committee of the IETF, the open international
>> voluntary standards organization for basic Internet protocols.
>> We are therefore concerned that the proposed responsibility
>> of the new corporation to
>>
>> >> coordinate the development of other
>> >> technical protocol parameters as needed to maintain universal
>> >> connectivity on the Internet.
>>
>> might be misread in such a way as to undermine the autonomy of the
>> IETF. We propose that the word "development" should be replaced by
>> the word "assignment". This would be consistent with the existing
>> relationship between the IANA and the IETF, which has proved
>> beneficial to all parties.
>>
>> 4. We support the authority of the current IANA, including that over
>> the DNS root, throughout the transition period and we will be very
>> happy to assist in any measures to reinforce that authority.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>   Brian E Carpenter (IAB Chair)         brian at hursley.ibm.com
>>   IBM United Kingdom Laboratories       http://www.hursley.ibm.com/~bc/
>>   MP 185                                phone: +44 1962 816833
>>   Hursley Park                          fax:   +44 1962 818101
>>   Winchester
>>   Hampshire SO21 2JN, UK
>>
>

John Martin
TERENA, Singel 466-468, NL - 1017 AW Amsterdam
phone:  +31 20 5304488 **
fax:    +31 20 5304499 **
http://www.terena.nl/

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-------- Logged at  Tue Feb 24 12:42:31 MET 1998  ---------